Government documents often help tell the story behind the story. Here are some new additions to The Xpress Files, our online archive of public records on hot topics:
• URTV: Local public-access TV station URTV has weathered some controversy of late due to questions over a secrecy oath signed by board members and related transparency concerns. Click here to read the station’s management agreements with the city of Asheville and Buncombe County, documents that lay out the terms of operation for the station. Also included is a 2007 amendment to Asheville’s management agreement with URTV, in which the city requires URTV’s board meetings to follow North Carolina’s open-meetings law.
• Downtown Master Plan draft: Xpress was the first news outlet to publish the much-anticipated — and much debated — draft of Asheville’s new Downtown Master Plan. Click here to read it.
• CTS of Asheville: A resolution, drafted by Buncombe County’s CTS citizen’s monitoring board in May 2008 for the county commissioners to sign, calls on federal and state agencies not to let CTS go into “voluntary remediation,” a process that would likely leave taxpayers bearing most of the cost of cleaning up the contaminated former factory site. Commissioners have still not passed the resolution. Also included are supporting documents. To see these records, click here and scroll to the bottom of the page.
• DWQ on The Cliffs: In an eight-page, Jan. 16 letter, the state Division of Water Quality requested more information from The Cliffs at High Carolina project in Fairview. DWQ has asked for disclosure of such details as what chemicals will be used for the golf course, how construction impacts on streams will be minimized, and what justification exists for some of the proposed culvert installations. Click here to read the document.
• A-B Tech president’s resignation letter: Dr. Betty Young, president of Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College, announced in late December that she would resign. Click here to read the memo she sent informing the college’s staff.
• Letters to Obama: Xpress columnist Edgy Mama recently reported on the letters that students at Isaac Dickson Elementary wrote to the newly inaugurated President Barack Obama. Click here to read the letters.
— Jon Elliston, managing editor
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